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Lissa and Nick meet and part over the years. From adolescence into adulthood, their friendship becomes the force that shapes both their lives.

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And in September, when she returned, Nick had done something with the place. He’d made it worse. His decor made her question whether he truly aspired to live in the waiting room of a dentist’s office. Over his shoulder as he greeted her, she spied a pair of the most torturously uncomfortable armchairs she’d ever seen, an equally insane sofa, and a low, chrome and glass coffee table with nothing on it. No rug or decor except a generic abstract print hung too high, small and odd-looking on the expanse of wall.

“You’re so tanned,” he said, practically waltzing her into his apartment with the particular giddy delight he possessed when he saw her those days. “Look at you. You always come back looking so continental, did you know that? Sometimes, to be honest with you, Liss, when you talk to me, I’m surprised you have a Dublin accent.”

“Glad I was missed.”

“Obviously. I’m always missing you.”

“I thought my postcard would have kept you satiated.”

Nick laughed. He had it stuck on his shiny, American-style fridge. “It was amazing, thanks. Made me miss you more, actually.”

Unless she was writing an academic essay—some report, or series of cited facts onto a page, Lissa was a struggling wordsmith. By the pool at Diane’s place, she’d tried to come up with poetry of some distinction, inspired by Nick’s fluency—the precise rhythm of his prose. Say something about the vineyard shimmering in the heat, she thought. The sky and how it looked in the afternoon. Nick would write about the four cocktails he’d had by midday, how he’d done something intensely annoying to someone else, and tie it together with some bitingly accurate remark about how Lissa would feel about his actions if she were there. Everything would be delivered with his relaxed italic script, like he’d dashed it off half-drunk and tossed it in the post without reading it. 

It took her forty minutes to compose hers. Dear Nick. 32 degrees today. Quite hot, but the pool’s cold. I’ve been for a swim already, now drying off, so thought I’d write. Later, Mum’s friends are coming over for dinner. Suspicious she will try to matchmake. SOS! Love, Lissa. 

It was like an eleven-year-old had written it, but in the spirit of spontaneity, she’d sent it anyway, regretting it as soon as it was in the post box and impossible to retrieve, and from there it had crossed a country and a sea, and landed on Nick’s fridge where anyone could read it. She should stick her market analysis essay about the competitive advantages of e-commerce integration for traditional high street retailers on there with it, so his next guests wouldn’t think she was stupid.

“Did she matchmake after all? Diane?” He was pouring her a glass of wine. “Did you find a lover?”

“What do you think?”

“Tell me, Lissa. I’m riveted.”

“Fine, yes. Jean-Claude. He’s sixty-four, a financier. Married, of course, but he was so bewitched by my youthful charm he’s agreed to put me in his will.”

“Ah,” Nick clutched his chest. “See, you’ve broken my heart now, actually. I was just going to tell you I’ve put you in my will.”

“Granting me possession of the Audi? And half of this beautiful apartment? Seems I’ve chosen the wrong man.”

“Jean-Claude could never give you what I could.”

“You don’t know what Jean-Claude has to give.”

Nick smiled. “He doesn’t know what I have.”

Lissa’s face got hot, and she tried to hide it behind her glass. She also didn’t know what he had, but it didn’t stop her picturing it regularly. 

He was on a roll now, talking about his Xtra-vision membership card, or something. Gesturing, listing more and more comically useless things he would leave to her in the instance of his untimely death, but Lissa zoned out, her eyes settling on the building directly across the river, and the thin woman strolling languidly across her open-plan kitchen. 

“Anyway,” Nick straightened up. “You get the point.” He dribbled the last of the wine into his glass and fetched another one from the rack. “What do you feel like doing tonight? It’s actually a friend of a friend's birthday. He’s having a thing at this pub on Camden Street, so if you feel like being social…”

“Maybe.”

“We don’t have to. No pressure, like, if you’re tired or whatever.”

She sighed. “I suppose all the travelling took it out of me. I’m not sure I’ll be up for chatting to a crowd of strangers.”

“Not strangers. You’ve met some of them already,” he said defensively, and began listing a random series of names, insisting she’d met them in this place, that place. That girl who was catastrophic at bowling, remember? Or the lad with the Red Hot Chili Peppers tattoo on his arm. Oh yes, she wanted to say. And his clothes smelled as if they’d been rotting in his machine for two days. 

“We could just stay in and watch a film,” she said hopefully. “Takeaway, catch-up, some wine. I’ve been looking forward to spending my first night here. In the guest room. Excusez moi.”

Nick looked down at his hands around the stem of his glass. “Yeah, yeah, that’d be fine. Could probably use a night in anyway. It’s been hectic—always out with the lads and stuff. Just, I haven’t gotten around to putting any furniture in the second bedroom yet, so you’d have to stay with me, if that’s cool.”

If that’s cool. When had it not been cool? Her memory of the time he’d rolled over in his sleep and draped his arm over her bare thigh rose up familiarly, and a tingle coursed through her body. She was like a starving dog obsessively returning to the bush it’d found a piece of chicken beneath six months ago. She pressed her palms hard against the bowl of her glass. 

“Yeah, fine,” she said. 

“Alright, well, you can pick out something to watch, then. I’ll be over in a sec—just need to let someone know.” Nick took out his phone and started thumbing the buttons, while she made her way over to his DVD collection. They’d seen so many together back in his Merrion Square flat. Half-watched, often—mere background noise for their late-night discussions. There were his DVDs: Blade, Point Break, Speed, and hers: Fiddler on the Roof, West Side Story, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and the films in between, the ones they could both watch without heckling the other. She scanned each cover with significant consideration.

“What about The Bodyguard?” she said. It seemed an acceptable blend of guns and romance.

Nick didn’t respond. 

She glanced back at him in the kitchen, texting, then shrugged, opened the box, and fed the disc into the player. 

The menu cycled through three or four times before he joined her, crisps poured into a bowl, and the bottle of wine on the coffee table in front. The leather of his dreadful couch squeaked as he adjusted himself, arm draped along the back of it, sitting close enough to her she could smell his deodorant doing its last hours of work. 

“Press play, then,” he said, and she did. 

They watched in the comfortable silence they’d grown accustomed to over the course of their friendship—Nick, eating all the crisps, because he was built like a greyhound and never put on weight, and Lissa, aware continuously of the inch of space between his knee and hers, and the rhythm of his breath in the darkening room. 

On screen, Kevin Costner looked pained and responsible. 

“You’re like that,” Nick said, shifting. He was touching her, accidentally or not. He was always doing that—inconspicuously touching her, like it wasn’t him, like gravity had done it, and it left her agonising over what it was supposed to mean. It was the same as this Kevin Costner statement, and the mystery of its intent. Was it some sort of strange compliment, or an acknowledgement of their dynamic? Did she stand around frowning protectively while Nick frolicked about? Was he mocking her?

She looked to him for clues, but the dim light of the sunset through the window was catching the side of his face and making him look handsome, which was unhelpful. His stupid, pretty face. She wondered if gouging her eyes out would be less traumatic than a platonic relationship. 

He looked at her at precisely the wrong moment, like he always did. Like he had a sense for it—catching her staring at him, when never once had she caught him. 

For one moment, the film went on without them. 

Kiss him, she thought. A thought as though from nowhere. Dragged from some corner of her mind, clear and certain once she’d forgotten to suppress it. Kiss him and see what he does. 

He looked at his phone. 

Click click click. Those incessant buttons. 

On TV was an intense driving scene. Lissa reached for the bowl to find it empty, and scraped the oily remnants out with her fingers. 

“Who’re you texting?” 

“Hm?” He was pretending not to hear. She hated when he did that. 

“Is there someone important on the phone?”

“Oh. Not really. Just…” he trailed off. Click click click. 

“Nick.”

He looked up. “What?” 

“Do you even want to watch this film?”

He pulled a face and dropped the phone on the cushion beside him, while Lissa retreated to the corner of the sofa. Metal framing beneath the upholstery dug into her ribs. 

“Sorry,” he said. She refused to look at him. “It was a friend.”

“It’s fine.”

“From work,” he added, though she hadn’t asked. 

Whitney Houston was being unreasonable on screen, and Lissa watched determinately as Nick continued to look at her.

“Why’re you so annoyed?” he said. 

“I’m not.”

He sighed and sank further into the couch, the frame creaking under his weight. He shifted. Once, then again. Pulled a cushion from behind him, then put it back. Moved incrementally closer, as though believing he was being sneaky. Light from the TV screen flitted along the glass top of the coffee table. He reached out eventually and grabbed the back of her hand. He didn’t look at her—simply squeezed a couple of pulses while she held herself still and didn’t reciprocate, and then he stopped. Slid his hand back into his lap. 

Then, for the following twenty minutes, Lissa regretted her coldness. She turned her palm upwards, daring him to do it again. He didn’t, and then she was a fool. 

The light was waning, and long shadows slid across the floor as characters on screen were slow-dancing in some low-lit bar, and to Lissa, it was unbearable. She excused herself and went to the bathroom. 

Beige—Lissa sat and frowned at the tiles in Nick’s bathroom. The pattern was lined up incorrectly in places, and the panel of the bath was coming off. Five-hundred-and-sixty thousand euros. This is what that sort of money got you, she thought. Shoddy workmanship and walls so paper-thin you could hear the TV from the toilet. 

There was mumbling, then. Nick was speaking, and Lissa held her breath. 

He was using that syrupy tone that made her want to suffocate him. The one he used on girls. 

“No, of course it’s alright,” he said. “Seriously—no, I mean it. You—well, don’t let me talk you into it.”

Lissa cracked the bathroom door to hear over the trickle of the cistern. 

Nick chuckled. A horrifying, sleazy thing that made her grimace. “Okay, well, see, I’m watching a film with a mate… yeah. The Bodyguard.” He followed up with a self-deprecating laugh. A stupid movie, yes, Lissa and her bloody considerate suggestions—she’d apparently forced him into it. 

“Well, as nice as that’d be, like, she’s here now. Yeah, she wants to stay for the evening—the night, even. I’d feel bad chucking her out, is all.”

Lissa glared at the gap of unfinished tile beneath the radiator pipe as blood rushed in her ears. She yanked up her knickers, flushed, washed her hands and dried them on his damp bath towel. 

While passing through his hallway, she snatched her handbag from the rack. 

In the living room, he was sprawled on the sofa watching the film, then looked up, smiling innocently at her, phone still hot in his hand. He spotted her bag, and his brow creased. 

“I’m going to head off,” she announced. 

“What? Really?”

“Yes. I got my period, and I’m not feeling well.”

Nick sat up straighter. “Do you need anything? I have—I have painkillers and chocolate… somewhere.” He looked around as though he might discover these things buried conveniently beneath the cushions. 

“No, thank you. I need to go home.”

“Don’t you even want to finish the film?”

“It’s a dreadful movie. Whitney is awful, and nobody else can act. Including the child.”

“Oh, don’t come after the child,” Nick said, the corners of his mouth twitching, before he remembered to act sincere and disappointed. “Liss—if you want to go, that’s fine, but I really don’t mind if you just want to hang out here with me. Won’t it be better to camp out than trek all the way back to your dad’s?”

“It’s fine. I’ll call a taxi.”

Finally, just a disgruntled scoff, and then she was satisfied. He’d run through the charade of pretending he wanted her there, and now he could call that woman back and invite her to bed instead of Lissa, who spoke nonsense in her sleep and pressed her cold feet on his calves. 

“I’ll see you later in the week, maybe?” he said as she was leaving, which was polite, at least.  

“Yeah, probably,” she replied. The door swung shut behind her.

“Glad I was missed.” “Obviously. I’m always missing you.”

Chapter 18.5 in which Lissa yearns hopelessly for Nick while he eats all the crisps they were supposed to share.

Hello loves <3 I know I've been away a while now, and though it started as house and job stresses, unfortunately I've been dealing with more personal, family issues since. At the end of May, my dad, who has been very ill for years, was taken into hospital with a critical illness.

After some really interesting writing discussions the last few months, I have been thinking a lot about my old work—I have almost twenty (!!!) years of online-published writing, and I have kept records of every fascinating page. 

Going through it all, I had come to realise how much I have learned over time, and how greatly I have improved, even when it doesn’t feel like it. I thought I’d share some of the most valuable lessons I learned about my own work through the years. 

I would love if others would let me know what resonates, what doesn’t, and if you have any of your own personal writing rules to share! 

Disclaimer: Of course, these are highly individual to me, and not at all a critique of what anyone else decides to do. We all have our unique voices, our ‘rules’ for ourselves, and a way of writing which brings us our own particular sense of joy. All writing is wonderful and perfect and beautiful. At the end of the day, you must do what you want.

I also don’t follow all my own rules all the time, for rules are meant to be broken. Sometimes it’s for the rhythm, the context, in dialogue, or just because I want to. 

Anyway, here’s my list–featuring fun examples of my retro works. 

“You don’t have to carry that—wait.”

“It’s fine, Nick, I can manage.”

He made a show of taking the box, hoisting it onto one shoulder and smiling, looking around to see if anyone could see him being chivalrous. 

“It’s not like it has far to go.”

“No, no, Lissa. I’ve got it. You shouldn’t have to carry anything.”

In the lift, she looked at him, darkened patches on the underarms of his t-shirt, admiring his own strength in the mirror. It wasn’t that he was exceptionally muscular or anything like that—he didn’t go to the gym or participate in exercise more rigorous and consistent than whacking balls around a squash court with his work mates once or twice a week—he simply had the natural, virile durability of a twenty-one-year-old man, which Lissa supposed in some way was a thing to be proud of. 

“Here we are.” He unlocked the door, and she squinted against the sunlight streaming through the windows. Outside was a view worth half a million, as Grand Canal Dock gleamed in the brilliance of summer. A skyline of cranes and glass office blocks: the broad ascent of Dublin’s tech empire in clear view from the living room. 

Nick set the box down, and it rattled with the contents of his material possessions. He always fancied himself a minimalist—a few books, a digital clock radio, one or two unique looking glasses he’d swiped from bars, and in the middle of a large, empty living space, it was impossible to imagine how he would ever fill it. 

“There’s the kitchen,” he announced with a flourish, though Lissa knew that. She could see it—glossy acrylic cabinets, chrome hardware, and a space where a fridge would go someday soon, to be filled with bottles of champagne and leftover takeaways. 

“Maybe one of those American ones with two doors,” he said. “With that dispenser for the ice, what do you think?”

“Mm. Lots of exciting possibilities,” said Lissa, and he beamed this huge, boyish grin he was usually too cool those days to grant her. A homeowner, he was. How novel. She smiled back, astonished anyone had convinced him this was a good idea. 

“I have grand plans, Lissa, grand plans.” 

“And the mortgage is what?”

“God, loads. It’s fine. My parents are helping me out with it until I get promoted at work, you know? The inevitable progression…” He glided his hand through the air like an airplane taking off. “It’s only up and up, really.”

“But really, then, it’s their apartment, isn’t it?”

Nick pouted. “Well, no, actually, it’s mine. Dad helped with the down payment, obviously. It’s not like I had, what? Fifty thousand euros lying around. But I secured the finances. It’s in my name… at least jointly.”

“Oh, wow. Good luck,” she said, though really, she scoffed it, and then felt guilty when he rolled his eyes before turning his face away. She didn’t know why she was like this with him sometimes—provoking and bad-tempered. It was as if she wanted him to argue with her, which, of course, she did not. It was the first time she’d seen him in two weeks, so why the urge to piss him off?

“The gym downstairs is a nice addition,” she admitted. “I haven’t—I didn’t know they were putting that kind of amenity in apartment blocks these days.”

“Yeah, it’s all very slick. Can you picture me down there lifting weights with the lads from Google?” 

“I can, actually. And you’re all talking about mortgages and investments… trading stocks.”

“Please, not me. I’m a creative.”

“Nah, I can just see you out there, those benches on the river, you and your tech friends drinking your fancy coffees in takeaway cups…”

“Can you, now.”

“Yeah. And you have some girlfriend from the building across from here. Her name’s Gretchen, and at night she leaves the blinds open so you can see her walking around naked.”

“Gretchen,” Nick savoured the name. “I could go out with a Gretchen.”

“Gretchen is too smart for you, actually, but don’t worry, she’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“Nice, nice. Of course she will.”

“It’s a whole new life for you, Nick. A life of American-style fridges. You’re moving up, aren’t you?”

“Well, not really. It’s just… it’s just an apartment. They’ll hand these out to anyone these days, won’t they?”

Lissa hesitated. “An asset is an asset.” 

“Yeah. Come on. Let me show you the best part. You’re going to love it.”

He led her across the hallway to a room, as blank and nondescript as the last. Rectangular. A window. Skirting boards. They stood there in its echo, just looking, until she became aware he was anticipating a reaction. 

“A room,” she commented. 

“Yes, Lissa,” he said. “For you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, look,” he entered a second door to reveal an ensuite bathroom, with small, brown and mirrored tiles , and opened the cabinet under the sink with the flourish of a magician unveiling his legless assistant. “A place for your things—your, your whatever—your face creams. No more complaints about them going missing. And see,” returning to the bedroom, he gestured broadly at an empty wall, “I’ll put a chest of drawers here, for your spare clothes and pyjamas. You won’t have to borrow my t-shirts anymore, how about that?”

Lissa felt something stuck in her throat. Of course, it was what she’d rallied passionately for those days in Merrion Square—her own room, her own moisturizer and specific shampoo, knickers that stayed where she’d left them—but now, Nick would never again pull some scandalous, hot pink g-string out of a heap and say “Is this not yours, no?” leaving her privately delighted that he thought her the kind of girl to wear it. It was a specific loss she couldn’t verbalise. 

“Oh, finally,” she said. “Thank God for that.”

“I’ll make it nice, too, Lissa. When you’re back from France, it’ll be ready, and you’re going to love it—you’ll love what I’ll have done with the place.”

Lissa just smiled. “Yeah, I’m sure I will.”

2007

She stalled in the drive-through. It always happened to her when she was in a hurry, or panicked, or more generally, behind the wheel of a car. She was not a natural driver, so she was rarely caught doing it. 

But the natural order of a fast-food restaurant drive-through demanded the operation of a vehicle, so there she was in her brother’s car, a greasy bag of food on the passenger seat, and the string of hungry drivers in the rear-view mirror waiting impatiently for Lissa to engage the clutch. 

Sheer force of will and adrenaline brought her sputtering out of the queue and into the south city, bright and clean in early spring, blossoms heavy on their branches while she wound toward Donnybrook. 

There were good reasons for driving, despite the horror of it, the beeping and the gesturing, and Lissa opting for left turns only unless strictly necessary, and one was the practicality of transporting fast food. The other was that Nick now owned a car, a flashy blue Audi his dad had financed, which he drove around in a predictably terrifying manner, revving the accelerator aggressively and adopting a reckless speed on the motorway while Lissa clung to the grab handle—his L plates stashed in the glove compartment. It was better for them both if she drove. 

She idled outside the television studio and sipped her milkshake, watching the door as young, trendy things poured out, bare legs and sleeves rolled up optimistically to soak up the very first rays of sunshine the year had to offer them. How pleased they must feel, she thought, to be young, working professionals on a Friday afternoon, strolling over to the pub to have pints and discussions about whatever film showing at the cinema was supposed to be good. She tried to lip-read as they hugged each other in the car park. Waved. See you there, yeah, I’ll see you. 

She’d been to the pub with some of Nick’s new friends (“work mates”) three or four times and found herself feeling consistently out of sorts and miserable, unable to think of anything cool to say, any minor celebrity names to drop, or do anything of substance to add to their conversations about whatever hungover news presenter they’d seen sneaking vodka into their morning coffee, or talk show guest said something weird to someone off set. She just smiled and made noises of agreement, surprise, or disgust, and tried not to dwell on the fact that nobody had asked her a question. 

Usually, she was distracted by Nick anyway, tortured by the sight of him surrounded by attractive women in their mid-twenties with things to say about the world and political opinions Lissa hadn’t thought about enough to share. She watched obsessively for the first person he looked at after he made a joke, because that was the one he fancied—something she wouldn’t have had to do if she had any patience, because he would tell her about it anyway, complete with information about how she’d given him a blowjob at a house party. 

There he was, stepping out into the sun with two colleagues. Hugs. See you Monday. He waved to Lissa, jogged over and let himself into the car, lifting the bag of food onto his lap. 

“Hello.” 

They exchanged smiles. 

“Hello, Nick, how was your day?” 

He just laughed and opened the bag of food. “So weird. I’ve just had this vision: you’re my wife picking me up from work. ‘How was your day, honey?’”

“Yeah. God forbid I ever submit myself to that specific flavour of misery.”

“I agree. Never get married.” He grabbed a milkshake—hers—and drank from it. “Here, thanks for collecting me—and for the food. I’m starving.” 

“Did you eat today?”

“Something from the canteen around… when? Eleven? A muffin it was. Very wifely of you to ask, thank you.”

She intercepted a burger before he could eat it, blocking his mouth with the back of her hand. 

“Save it until we get to the spot. Leave it. Back in the bag, thank you very much.”

“We’ll just eat it in the car anyway. What’s the problem?” All around them, there was rubbish—chocolate wrappers in the footwell, takeaway cups and bottles of water rolling across the back seat. “Are you afraid I’ll get crumbs in Alex’s car?”

“Ha ha.” She started the engine. “I thought we could get out of the car this time, given the sunshine. Venture beyond the car park, how about that? We could have a… a picnic or something.” How embarrassed she felt suggesting it. As though she were asking him on a date.

“We could have a picnic in the car,” he protested, and she ignored him. Was he allergic to being outside? Stupid boy. Pulling onto the Stillorgan Road, she hesitated as traffic rushed by, then took a left.

In lieu of a picnic blanket, which she was not surprised to find absent from Alexander’s boot, they sat on their jackets while they ate, the late afternoon not quite warm enough to be without them, but the grass was damp enough to warrant something to sit on. Together, they watched brave swimmers wading to their knees in the sea, splashing water over their arms and then surrendering themselves to it—the slash of iron grey under a pale sky. 

Sandymount Strand was filled with others like them—those who had the bright idea of braving the outdoors after the misery of winter. And there they were, all facing the bay as if to admire the underwhelming vista. The Poolbeg chimneys coughed smog into the air, drifting eastwards in the breeze, and everyone pretended it was a sight to behold—a quintessential Dublin view which Lissa knew she would romanticise if she ever left. 

Nick, with three sauce containers open on the grass, dipped his chips in all of them and contaminated them past the point of sharing. 

“Tell me about college,” he said. He always waited ages to bring it up, after the more exciting conversation had been had, as though asking obligingly about a sick grandparent. 

Lissa didn’t really want to talk about it either, but it wasn’t like there were other things going on for her. The hotel. Jade’s ventures. Study. College. Her life was a cycle of uninteresting, occasionally anguished days, which she packaged into bland, non-offensive sound bites to share with whoever asked.

“Fine,” she said. “Same as ever. Busy busy. You know me.”

“Mm. I do. Nothing interesting happening, then?”

“I had an enjoyable meal out on Tuesday.”

Glanced at her hopefully. “A date?”

“No. With a tutor—a few of us went. We were discussing… well, something you’d find boring, to be honest. But I had this fennel sausage dish, which was tasty.”

“Oh yeah, cool. What’s the latest with that Adam guy?”

Lissa groaned. The previous months had been wrought with a predicament, started by her attempt at spontaneity. At the college pub one evening after too much to drink, she’d kissed Adam from her course. Or rather, let him kiss her, after he lurched terrifyingly towards her through the dark, eyes fluttering and already half-closed. It was a submission that felt more convenient in the moment than a no. 

But of course, Lissa’s life was not Nick’s, which was rich with impromptu sexual encounters involving women at work and his wider friend group. Relationships that appeared simply to snap back to normal afterwards, like nothing had happened. All friends again the next day.

Adam’s yearning glances across the lecture halls escalated over a period of weeks, until he was following Lissa to lunch and leaving a series of love poems in places he knew she’d come across them. She has the prettiest grey eyes, he’d write, which was arguably untrue, just objectively. Her eyes were fine. They were grey. 

Then he was waiting outside her accommodation in the mornings, trying more than once to hold her hand on the way to a lecture while she batted him off and pretended she needed to fix her hair. 

Her rejection was explosive. Long awaited, in her opinion but appalling and heart-shattering for Adam, who retreated into misery, showing up to class late in purposefully dishevelled clothing while the girls clucked around him and shot evil stares at Lissa: The bitch who hadn’t given poor Adam a chance. He’d apparently written something long and strange about her on the internet, which she hadn’t yet read. 

Nick had. He’d found it, and cackled delightedly while he combed through each miserable paragraph. “You think you know someone, and they turn around and stab you in the heart…” he’d dictated that far before she begged him to stop. Now he said that all the time to her, “You think you know someone…” if she got him the wrong flavour of drink, took too long to text him back, or asked him to turn down the music in the car. 

“No,” Lissa told him, yanking bits of grass out of the soil. “Nothing new. The same. I’m still a callous bitch, so everyone hates me.”

“Losers,” Nick said. “That’s one of the things I love most about you.”

She wished he wouldn’t say things about loving her—waving that word in her face. I love you. I love The Strokes. I love Jessica Alba, and 7 Up, and tequila shots, and kebabs from that one restaurant without anywhere to sit. He should stop being so flagrant with it, or someone might get the wrong idea, might get their hopes up and start slipping romantic poems into his pockets. Yeah, and it’d serve him right. 

Of course, he did mean it, in his own Nick way, with his huge, passionate Nick heart. He loved her because she was his friend, the same way he loved all his friends and accomplices, even the stupid ones. It wasn’t very hard to be loved by him, and therefore it wasn’t very special. 

He lay back on the grass, hands behind his head, squinting at the contrails criss-crossing the sky. She had a view right up his nostrils. 

“So, your love life, then,” he said—the next topic on the agenda. “Any men?”

“No. Barely.”

“You’re not interested, even?”

“Well, there’s nobody. Where would I meet a man? On the bus?”

“At college, obviously. Normally, that’s where people meet each other. Anyone in your course, no? Despite the poet.”

“No, they’re all… boring. I don’t know.”

He laughed. “Do you expect Duffy’s Circus, Lissa? You’re doing business and law.” 

“If I ever end up with a businessman or a lawyer…”

“Imagine that—grim.” Nick paused, sighted her miserable expression, and for a moment his tone softened. “Yeah, but c’mon. It won’t happen to you. You’ll find someone better than that. A funny man, huh? A funny man who also somehow has enough money to give you a comfortable life.”

“Mm.”

“Don’t go getting all bummed out on me.” He touched her—the back of her arm where the skin was soft and ticklish, and though her instinct was to flinch, she stayed perfectly still while pleasant shivers travelled all the way up her neck. “You’re a nice-looking girl. You’ve a lovely face and—I don’t know what it is with these guys. You should be having an easier time out there. There isn’t a single man among women who wouldn’t want to—you know—go on a date at least, or…”

He trailed off and was frowning across the green when she glanced back at him. Thinking less about what he’d been saying, and more about the fair-haired woman wiping grass off the arse of her jeans. He didn’t do it very well anyway—sincerity, vulnerability. It made him awkward, so it was more humane to let him give up and stare at something shiny. 

“Maybe they can tell I’m not totally in it,” Lissa said, and then she had him again. His eyes snapped back to her. He had a feral kind of face, she thought. Not handsome in all lights, but aquiline. Vigilant. He gave her a knot in her stomach that made her want to scream or retch or squeeze something until it broke. 

Tell him. 

“Like the way… the way you can’t even consider something new when you’re so… focussed on something else.”

“Like what? The—” he looked around as though saying something illegal. “Like Joshua? Is it still—I thought you were—”

“Not Joshua, obviously.”

“Then what?” 

It was a shame he was so nice to look at while being so incurably dense. His expression was one of confusion, curiosity, anticipation—hungry for the scoop. 

“Work stuff,” she said. “Just with being so busy at the hotel, my increased responsibilities… there’s not a lot of time to think about my love life.”

His face fell. “Ah, okay.”

“Yeah, just, you know how it is. I’m overseeing some bookings now, checking on the rates, managing online reviews, which is a whole other beast…”

“Mhm. Yeah. Busy busy, right? C’mere.”

“What?”

“Just lie down with me for a while. Let’s enjoy the day while we have it. I don’t want to talk about work.”

Lissa adjusted her jacket across the grass and lay with him, squinting too at the sky. The air was cool and raised goosebumps on her arms, but she stayed, soaking up the sunshine and the birdsong and the sea breeze that rustled the fast-food bags scattered about their feet. 

“Do you want to sleep over later?” Nick said after a while. His eyes were shut, and his mouth held a serene smile. “I was thinking of going out, but now I don’t know. I had this idea that you and I could hang out and watch something. I figured out how to download movies for free on my laptop, so we could even watch in bed, eat sweets and fall asleep. What do you think?” 

Lissa imagined going with him. Dropping Alexander’s car off and taking the DART. Next to him on the seat, the rasp of his windbreaker sleeve against hers. Her toothbrush would be by his sink, and when they were in his bed watching that show about lawless British teenagers he was fascinated by, some couple on screen would kiss or start having sex, and she’d be aware her bare leg was touching his under the duvet. The knot in her stomach tightened. 

“I think I should stay at my dad’s tonight, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s just with the car and all… it’s awkward. Anyway, he wanted to catch up with me about something at the hotel. It’s fine. Next time for sure.”

“Alright, fair enough,” Nick said, pausing to look at her. She didn’t turn her head.

Lissa having a vile and rancid attitude in every update so far

There's always something w/ her istg

2003 - 2007

Nick so far - being smug and irritating every time he shows up on screen

Later, when the food came, they ate at the table. Sweet and sour chicken. Egg fried rice, chips, prawn kung po. Lissa opened a container of curry sauce and passed it to Nick. 

“Thanks for getting this.”

“Yeah, of course. Feels late, but—” He worried the back of his neck, smeared saucy circles on his plate with a chip, then remembered his intention to give a toast. “Hey, happy birthday,” he lifted his glass, and she clinked hers against it. 

Lissa wiped her fingers on a napkin. A car passed on the road outside. He was avoiding her eyes.

God, she thought. It’s something bad. He’s in love, or worse. What’s worse? Pregnancy. Yes. Someone is pregnant. Nick Lynott will be a father at twenty, and his life will be ruined. 

He messed with his fringe. Pushed a crescent of onion aside to procure the chicken underneath.

He’ll have to leave the flat, of course. Find some sturdy four-bed-two-bath in Terenure. Then where would she go? Get a taxi down there at 3am and ask to come in? Help me, Nick, I’ve slept with some horrible man called Macker. Oh, right, Nick would say. I have a baby. 

“Nick,” she laid her fork down. “What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Is someone… did you get yourself into trouble, or something?”

He stared. “What?”

“I meant—” how stupid she felt even saying it out loud. “You’re acting off.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are! Stop being weird.”

He leaned back in his chair and exhaled slowly, raised his hands in surrender. “Look, it’s nothing bad.”

“Then what is it?”

“I got a—” he faltered, glanced down at his lap. “I got a job.”

She could have laughed with relief. “God, Nick, that’s it? You got a job? Here I was thinking something terrible was happening to you. You got a job! Congrats! Why are you acting like you’re fleeing from the law?” 

“Ah–I don’t know. It’s just—”

“Where?” Lissa reached across the table and took a chip from his plate. “How did you get it? What is it? Tell me everything.”

“I’ve been having these discussions with my parents all summer. They’ve been trying to decide what’s best for me, and I suppose we’ve landed on the idea that it’s time for me to, you know, enter the working world. I’m going to be a junior production assistant at RTE.”

“Wow, look at you! That’s amazing.”

Ah, she thought, so the freewheeling Nick Lynott was being forced to settle—to do something so uncool as show up on time, and assimilate to a world where nine actually meant nine. He’d do as she did—forgo pub nights with his classmates, relinquish his weekends, scavenge for small pockets of fun in between all that obligation. 

“Of course, this means I’ll be dropping out of college,” he said, and the smile slid right off her face. 

“Hang on, what?”

“Well, I can’t do both. It’s full time. Insane hours, honestly, and I just couldn’t swing it. My parents agreed—they were like, enough of the shit grades. They’ve admitted it isn’t worth it anymore.”

“But—Nick, come on. It’s just two more years. You could manage that. Just get a tutor or something. I could even help you if—”

“I needed help to get through secondary school. It can’t be like this forever, you know? I can’t keep throwing money at the problem. It’s time to give up on academia. It’s boring anyway. Never suited me.” 

Lissa frowned. His beautifully written essay lay among a heap of discarded papers on the coffee table. “But a degree. It’s worth having, don’t you think? Yes, you’ll do this TV job now, but then what? What if you need a degree for a job down the line? Starting from scratch would be so much worse.”

His eyebrow arched as he poured more curry sauce over his chips. “Yeah, I can see that. Me, as a mature student, clawing my way back for my level-eight in media.” 

“Nick.” Her knife clattered against the lip of her plate. “You can’t just give up because it’s hard.”

“Yeah, I can, actually, and I’m relieved. You should be relieved. You won’t have to hear me going on about how miserable I feel anymore.”

Yes, nor would she have to endure him in the library, throwing balled up pieces of his copybook at her while she tried to study, or see his face popping up behind the window in her lecture hall door, staring with this haunted, blank expression until he made her laugh, or meet him on the lawn with the sandwich he’d bought her from the place on the corner, the fizzy water he’d specially paid for in lieu of the meal-deal Club Orange she never drank. 

And days would be long again. Nick was aware of that, so engrossed in his meal now, because he’d never said it out loud, but he knew he was her only friend, and the only one that made college bearable. The last term of second year when he was with her—sometimes even sleeping at the end of her single bed in Schols where she almost didn’t mind his feet being near her face—was the happiest time she’d ever had. She was safe. Wholly understood. He actually complained when she couldn’t make it to the pub. And what now? 

“I don’t know how you’d like me to react.” 

“C’mon Lissa, be happy. It’s good. Great, even.” he was trying to get her hyped up like a club promoter, though frankly it felt like the bleak ending of the party. 

“Is that what you want? To just—to work at a TV station? Fetching coffee for people?”

“Well… there’s a bit more to it than that.”

“Taking lunch orders then.”

“Right? At the start, maybe,” he said defensively. “But I’ll get to know people. Network and all, and something else might come of it.”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit hollow overall?” 

His smile quavered. “Hollow?”

“Come on, that whole world… it’s…?”

“See, I’m confused now, because you were thrilled for me about two minutes ago.”

“Yeah, but you’re dropping out, which is obviously drastic.”

He scoffed and pushed his plate away from him. “This is the decision I’m making.”

“Yeah, but Nick, if you want to be a journalist—”

“Who said I want to be a journalist?” 

She hesitated. “Well, your essays, your notebook. You like to write.”

“Maybe I could do that at RTE. Who knows? Who says I couldn’t be a journalist there?”

“Yeah, a television journalist.”

“You act as if the job is contaminated.”

“No…”

“Uh, yeah! The way you just said that—television—was like the closest you’ve ever been to saying a curse word.” He seized the wine bottle and filled his glass. “Stupid of me to say anything to you. Should have kept my mouth shut.”

Lissa’s face grew hot. She too had stopped eating. Her prawns looked limp on her plate, swimming around in a pool of soy sauce and wrinkled peppers. “I am. I was just questioning whether you were making the best choice.”

“These are my choices, at the end of the day, aren’t they?”

“Right, yeah, obviously. You can do what you want.”

“Exactly.”

He’d abandoned the conversation, so she let him sulk there, stabbing at his food, chewing resentfully, while she quietly finished the wine. He sniffed. She cleared her throat, and eventually, unable to bear the silence, Nick got up and put on the radio. Saturday night club anthems thumped through the flat while Lissa picked at cold prawns and let him be.

She was early to Nick’s, which she never liked to be. He was among the camp of people cool enough to invite you for nine when he actually meant ten—who had some secret, magical knowledge of the exact right time to arrive at a party and when to leave. Not Lissa. She was half an hour early for everything, no matter how she tried. 

He had told her five, and it was eleven minutes to four. Eight, by the time she’d attempted the mathematical equation in her head, battled her anxiety, and weighed up whether it was worse to call on him before he was ready to receive her, or loiter nervously on his doorstep for two hours staring at her reflection on the brass knob. 

She pressed the bell. 

Several moments passed, then his voice was low through the speaker. “Yeah?”

“It’s me.”

He buzzed her in. 

She went to his floor, where he was already waiting with the door open, messing with his hair in a way that felt oddly self-conscious, as though caught off guard. 

“Are you early?”

“I am—sorry. The thing at the hotel ended sooner than I thought, and I didn’t want to just sit in some cafe.”

“No, no. It’s fine, come in. I was just snoozing, basically.” 

It looked that way. His apartment had that smell—the stuffy, human smell she’d come to know from the rare moments she’d entered Alexander’s lair. Nick had the TV on, some quiz programme playing for background noise, and a rumpled mass of material on his bed, where he’d clearly passed out on the contents of his open suitcase. 

“You’ve not unpacked, I see.” 

“I kind of did. I’m just—” he yawned. His arms and stomach were brown from Ibiza. “I dunno if I’m jet lagged or what, but I’ve crashed since getting home.”

“Yes, you must be. That single hour is a killer.”

“Yeah. C’mere. I missed you.” When he hugged her, he squeezed so tight her feet left the floor. 

“You missed me after two weeks?”

“Yeah, course I did. I still wish you’d come.”

“Right. Can you picture that? Me in Ibiza with—I don’t know—a glow-band around my neck and some nuclear green shot dribbling down my chin?”

“One hundred percent. Come with me next time.”

“Next time?” Lissa sank onto the sofa, pulling a stack of papers from underneath her. “Two weeks didn’t satiate you?”

“It was—I mean… I don’t remember every moment, but it was… yeah. Mad, basically.” He was nodding a faraway look in his eyes—back in some den of iniquity screaming Shots! Shots! And posing for a photo next to someone’s arse tattoo. 

She’d opted not to go when he’d floated the idea, claiming busyness, but she knew the debauched shores of Ibiza was not the place for a person like her. She’d hold him back somehow, looming in the corner of a club with her generally judgemental air, then suggesting they take a guided tour of the old town while he was still vomiting the remains of the previous evening off the side of the balcony. 

But maybe she was just scared of what might or might not happen once they’d left the confines of their routine. A choice between moral vertigo and crushing rejection that she was not prepared for. 

“Maybe when we graduate, we could do an Ibiza holiday together. 2008. Our last free summer. What do you think? You think I could handle it?” 

“Ha. Yeah,” Nick said. Busy, suddenly, in a search through the miniature bottles in his toiletry bag. “We’ll see. Maybe.”

“Like, I’m just getting used to the club thing, but maybe in two years I’ll be a veteran. Do you reckon?”

He pinched his nostrils. “You act like it’s a quantifiable skill. I don’t know if it’s something you can study for.”

“So you’re saying I won’t ace the exams.”

Again, he dodged her eye. “Mm. I’m going to take a shower, is that cool?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Okay, you can… do whatever. TV is yours.”

He shut the bathroom door, and she heard the hum of the shower, the splash of water over the tiles. Sighing, she reached for the pile of papers—the remnants of his holiday, tossed onto the cushions. Boarding pass, bus tickets, hotel booking. Inside the sleeve of his passport was a postcard with a colourful illustration of a white sand beach. She turned it over in her hands. 

4th September 2006. 

Lissa, 

He’d written it for her. She sat up straighter. 

It’s a cliche to write ‘I wish you were here,’ but I do, actually, wish you were. You’d hate it, but at least we’d be laughing about it in between moments of pure horror. Thinking of you on your birthday. I’m glad you’re not wasting your 21st here, but sad you’re not wasting it with me. I’ll buy you dinner when I’m home. 

Did I write ‘when’? I meant ‘if’. No guarantee I’ll survive.

Love, 

N. 

Beneath was someone else’s juvenile scrawl. Dowdall, no doubt, or one of his other barely literate friends who went exclusively by their last names and had seized control of the pen.

Love you Lisa. XXxXxx Your a sexy bitch I fancy you from Nick. 

Then there was another message. Smaller, bubblier font with little circles over each i occupied a portion of the postcard. 

Nick, you’re amazing! Had the greatest week ever with you. Text me! Message me on MSN. 

Don’t forget me! XxXxXx

Sharon. 

Ah, of course there was a Sharon, for where there was a Nick, there was a Sharon. Yes, Sharon, Lissa narrated. I’ll give you this postcard, and you can put your details there. I won’t send it to my friend. She won’t mind. 

And Lissa didn’t mind, not really, because he’d followed through on his postcard promise and was actually buying her dinner that night. They were ordering Chinese. Nick never actually would call Sharon, because he never got around to things like that—distance made relationships inconvenient. 

The bottom of the pile was his notebook—the one he carried with him sometimes, often pulling it out to scrawl observations into it. Smell of turf smoke–earthy?? Was one. Asics tracksuit pants in the canal. Ice cubes look like molars. Dog shit isn’t white anymore? The fractured ramblings of a madman. 

He never minded her snooping. She’d asked him once or twice what he was writing when he had the book out on the bus or at brunch, and when he’d showed her, she’d regretted having an interest. It was rarely something that made any sense to her, like, say, a juicy account of his most private feelings. She wasn’t actually sure he had private feelings at all, just blatant and very public ones. “You’re hot,” she’d actually heard him say once to someone in lieu of an introduction. “Do you mind if I kiss you?” and the girl said yes to him. He was like an alien. 

So she pulled a folded paper free from the pages—one of his printed pieces—and flipped it open. 

An essay. 

Mick’s taxi smells like cigarettes and pine-scented air freshener–the kind that hangs from the mirror and never exactly works. He’s been driving the city for over forty years, and knows the veins of this city like the ones on the back of his own hand. 

“I’ll tell you about Dublin,” he says to me. “Used to be you knew everyone. All the local characters. You heard about Johnny Forty Coats?”

I have, but anecdotally. For I was raised in a different Dublin—a city post Johnny Forty Coats and Bang Bang, the man who shot finger guns at passengers of Dublin Bus. I’ve come up amongst the flash and excess of the Celtic Tiger, exposed to more wealth than my ancestors could imagine. It’s different for Mick. He remembers life before the boom.  

“Now it’s all tourists, tech lads who think they own the place. Look, like your man over there.” 

He is pointing to a young lad with a backpack, speaking on the phone as he crosses from North Earl Street to the Spire. I don’t know what it is about him that’s caught Mick’s attention, but I am aware he looks a bit like I do. For a moment, there I am. Conscious of myself—a gentrifier in the back seat of the car.

Mick’s observational, not bitter. There’s truth in—

The bathroom door opened, and Nick emerged wearing a towel. Lissa reflexively folded the paper and tried to slot it back into the notebook. 

He barely cared. “Oh, you’re reading that thing.” 

“Yeah,” she hesitated. “I really like it.”

“Yeah?”

“What’s it for?”

“Oh, some college thing.” He crossed the room to pick through his clothing, and Lissa knew to keep her back to him while he changed. “I didn’t finish it.”

“You didn’t hand it in.”

“Nah.”

“Well, you should have. It’s interesting.”

“Mick was cool, yeah. Bit of a wildcard. Eventually, he started going on about conspiracy theories, though, kind of derailed the interview.”

“That’s why it’s unfinished?”

“No, I just didn’t get around to it. I was doing other things.”

Lissa fought a wave of frustration. What was more important than his college work? Especially when he was so clearly good at it, when it was so easy for him, but she held herself back from scolding him because she knew already that Nick did what Nick did, regardless of her opinion.  

“Well, I’d like to read whatever you write in future. You should email me your college work.”

“Serious? Thought you weren’t into that sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing? Literature?”

“No. Articles. Interviews. Got the impression you’d rather self-immolate than read a magazine piece.”

She risked looking at him, mercifully clothed already, pulling his socks on. “Yeah, an article about Katie Price and her husband, sure, but I’d read your work. Whatever genre it is. If all magazines had writing like this, I’d clear the shelves.”

There was a razor-thin line to tread when speaking to Nick about his work—balancing between patronising encouragement and total dismissal. You had to hit exactly the right tone, or he disengaged. 

She bit her lip and watched him disengage. Took his paper from her and tossed it onto the coffee table. “C’mon, Lissa. Boring.” He flopped onto the sofa beside her. “Do you want to watch this programme? You like quiz shows, yeah? You should be on one. Smarty pants.” 

She didn’t, so he switched to Judge Judy, and they watched quietly, Nick’s shoulder pressed up against hers, his damp hair leaving an imprint on the cushion behind him. 

“What’s with the clothes?” he said, pinching the steel grey cotton of her slacks. 

“It’s just what I wore. I wanted to look professional.”

“Oh, the hotel,” looking at her, she couldn’t look back. His face was too close to hers. “How did it go?”

“Fine. There’s not much to it.”

“Running an actual hotel, like?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. The work is obvious. Dad just made a heap of phone calls and strolled around feeling smug about himself.”

“Nice. That’s the life.”

She huffed a laugh. “Yeah. Not mine. I really don’t think I’m cut out for the job.”

“Hm. You just don’t want it.”

“Mm.” 

“Did you see Phil?”

“I did.”

“And? What’d he say? That he hot-tubbing with fourteen Russian models with double-Ds?”

“No. Barely said anything, actually. Thank God.”

“Good. So you didn’t get a whiff of his gingivitis.”

“You should write about him in your next essay. He’s the kind of character you’d do justice, do you think?”

Nick’s expression shifted. Stood up suddenly and went into the kitchen. “Do you want a glass of wine? I’ve got some Pinot open in the fridge.”

She watched him. “Yeah, okay.”

“And then we can order dinner. Hang on, I’ll find the menu.”

“Okay. I’ll just order the prawn—”

“Yep, I’ll get the menu.”

“I know what I want.”

“Hang on.” His face was hidden from her behind the kitchen island as he rummaged through the bottom drawer. 

“Nick, are you alright?”

“Yeah, of course. All good.”

“You sure? You seem a bit…”

“Yeah, tired,” he said, before changing his answer to: “Wired, maybe. I dunno, yeah. I’ve barely slept since before Ibiza. Maybe I’m a bit manic.”

“...are you on drugs?”

“Yeah, Liss, I took a yoke on the flight. Of course not. I’m just looking for the menu, wait a sec.”

She was sitting in the corner of her father's office, watching him take a phonecall. Her weekend had come to this. 

Jarlath did not live an ordered life—comfortable in chaos, he was, with things strewn about wherever he dropped them. Always missing his keys until he learned to put them into his shoes. Then: missing his shoes. Getting into the back seat of his car always involved several minutes of clearing miscellaneous items in order to fit inside. Umbrella. Golf clubs. A stack of important documents he would later complain were missing. His office was no exception. 

He sat behind the large mahogany desk in the specific, golden light of early September, and around his finger was the coiled wire of the telephone while he rifled through papers in pursuit of a booking report.

“Bear with me, Michael, bear with…”

Tossed a hand in surrender. 

“No. Apologies. Have you got it there? …Yes. 72%, is it? Really? That’s shit. What are the Shelbourne doing?”

He winked at Lissa, perched on the Chesterfield armchair that had occupied the room since her great-grandfather was the owner, and she smiled. 

“...so we’re too expensive. Drop the deluxe rooms by twenty euros. That’ll shift them. And then…” Lissa watched him click around the desktop of his ancient, yellowed computer. A folder called fdghj. Files: hfjgk and hfjgk(1). “I have a record somewhere. They’ve announced that concert in January, haven’t they? Do you know—yes? Exactly. Let’s bump the prices 30% for that.”

He was suave, generally. Even while discussing numbers on the phone, though Lissa was sure some of his theatrics were exaggerated in her presence. He might as well have put his feet up on the desk and pulled out a Cuban cigar to suck on. 

“That’s just an insight for you there,” he said to her once the phone was back on the receiver. “How the booking business works.”

“Seems quite simple.”

“Well, there’s more to it than meets the eye. Lots of hidden logistics, see.”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

And for lunch, they met a client in the lounge, where servers rushed over with menus. Mr. Mansfield this, Mr. Mansfield that, and Lissa sipped her glass of wine. It was still summer enough to enjoy the rosé, and she did, while stealing opportune glances out the window behind Mr. Galbraith’s head at a troupe of young tourists sharing sangria in the sun. 

He wasn’t talking to her anyway. Once they’d wrapped up the perfunctory introductions and he’d understood that she was essentially a token woman at the table present to learn the ropes, Galbraith decided he no longer had to acknowledge her. A conference, the men were discussing. He wanted the hotel for a weekend, and of course, yes, Jarlath would work out a rate that made them both happy. 

It was another tech event. Tech men—because let’s face it, they were usually men—were invading Dublin like the Axis forces and expecting to be thanked for it. Those pallid, hunchbacked boys who had once punched incomprehensible digits into their computers over a nest of cables had recently become something modern and dangerous. In blazers over graphic t-shirts, they loped through the lobby on conference weekends, and at night, raided the minibar and worked themselves up into such a spurt of rebellion that they flung bibles out the window onto the terrace. They would do it again this year for a discounted rate. Some faceless person would clean it up, nothing would be said, and the pattern would repeat. 

“... and catering, naturally,” Galbraith said, to punctuate his long list of expectations. “We weren’t satisfied with the spread last time. Sandwiches and whatnot. Underwhelming fare.”

Lissa raised her eyebrows. 

“Sorry to hear that,” Jarlath said. Unaffected expression on his face. “We can arrange something more appropriate—get the chef to come up with a menu.”

“We’d be looking for something gourmet.”

“Sure.”

Lissa watched him scribble lobster?? into his notebook, then he slid it toward her so she could nod earnestly at it. 

“And can you—” Galbraith waved his pointed finger vaguely at the notebook. “If you’d include a note about the service. The last time attendees waited twenty minutes for coffee orders. Can you make sure the girls can keep up this time?”

Lissa had been the manager on staff that day. She remembered it because an elderly customer had a medical incident. While awaiting an ambulance, the conference attendees formed a pointedly long queue and complained. What-kind-of-establishment this, are-the-waitresses-even-qualified that. Then they all took to Yelp and left two-star reviews where they used her actual name. Jarlath barely knew how to use Google, so it was fine, but in self-destructive moments Lissa still looked them up and seethed. 

Jarlath smiled pleasantly. “Look, I’ll speak to events and we’ll come up with a rate. Fifty rooms, conference space, catering… we’ll see if we can throw in late checkout, as we’re aware these events can run on. We’ll consider it an apology for the service last year. What do you think, Lissa?”

She realised she’d been grinding her teeth. “Yes, we’ll see what kind of deal we can work out for you.”

Jarlath grinned, his hand on her shoulder, and she felt like one of the boys. 

They wrapped up with handshakes and great thumps on each other’s backs and promises of contracts by Friday, then Galbraith left, the napkin he’d blown his nose into stuffed into his glass. 

“You did well, Lissa,” Jarlath said. “That’s what it’s all about. Making everyone happy.”

“You think he’ll be happy? Doesn’t seem exactly easy to please.”

“Oh, he’ll complain about something in the end. He always does that, and we’ll take it on the chin and sort it. It’s the way it goes,” looking at her seriously. “It’s the nature of the business.”

“I know that. Just—he’s a bit—”

“A bastard, yes, but a rich bastard.” He laughed and made a gesture with his fingers to signify money. Money, money, yes, that’s what the business was built on. More. Everywhere, all the time. But Lissa saw no good reason for it to justify rudeness—more dreaded Yelp reviews with her full name in the title. 

The restaurant door opened, and in came Phil, hands in his pockets and the demeanour of a man who was just poking around in someone’s drawers. “Jarlath,” he said, and her father stood. 

“I needed to run something by you.” He acknowledged her with a nod. “Lissa.”

“Hello Phil.”

“You two busy?” 

Jarlath buttoned his jacket with one hand. “Well, we can wrap it up there, do you think, Lissa?”

She glanced at her watch. “It’s earlier than we agreed.”

“Oh, well, I think it’s probably enough for one day.”

She looked at him. At Phil. “Yes, I suppose.”

“I’ll see you later at home?”

“I—I don’t know. I might be staying at a friend’s.”

“That’s fine, darling. Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

“And tell Nicky I was asking for him, won’t you?”

“Mm.”

She watched them go, and through the fluted glass panel in a door, their navy suits were fractured, then blurred, then gone.

Friends I’m back from London my second fave UK city and my camera roll is diabolical. Let me run you through it.

These pigs in the Hackney city farm were siblings and I just thought the chicken looked funky

I hate Margaret Thatcher and am rly glad she’s dead but I’m always pleased to see her when she’s being ridiculed via art 🥰

Shiba dog was so well behaved but the owner was the most aggressive woman to ever live. Stared hatefully at a couple of 7 yo girls who just wanted to see the dog and talk about how it was cute.

Duck! I was on a boat that took 2 hours to crawl from islington to camden, and someone blew up the toilet en route and i thought it was a sewage leak until a man (not all men--always a man) emerged from the bathroom

There is €19 tequila in the duty free bag and I got catcalled by two workmen in a white van (unoriginal) as soon as I got off the train from Stansted which hasn’t happened in a while so some sort of surprised delight accompanied my disgust

Hope you’re all ok !! Catching up on messages comments and stories!